For pity's sake, stop talking about coalitions

Some politicians and academics keen to see Stephen Harper’s Conservatives lose the 2015 federal election are re-igniting a debate about whether the Liberals and the NDP should either cooperate during an election, or form a coalition afterwards.

Tom Mulcair and Justin Trudeau have rejected this idea repeatedly, angering many who think they’re letting partisanship — or ego — hand Harper the next election. They’re wrong. Mulcair and Trudeau are rejecting the idea because it’s a bad idea — because Liberal-NDP cooperation won’t defeat Harper in 2015. In fact, talking about it helped Harper win a majority in 2011.

Telling voters that you can’t win is not a winning message. Conceding the election publicly before it starts is not a campaign strategy. The entire premise of NDP-Liberal cooperation, or coalition, takes it as given that neither party can win the next election — and reinforces the idea that Harper is unbeatable.

On the day the 2011 writ dropped, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff fumbled a question about the possibility of a coalition. Conservatives saw an opening and made sure Ignatieff spent the rest of the campaign fielding questions about it. How important was it for the Conservatives’s messaging? Their 2011 platform mentioned a Liberal/NDP/BQ coalition no less than 48 times.

Some suggest that the Liberals and New Democrats could get out of each other’s way by agreeing not to run candidates against each other in certain ridings. But ask yourself: How would that work? How could a patchwork, hybrid campaign with no common structure or platform compete with a single national Conservative campaign running candidates in every single riding? What would the message be from Mr. Mulcair and Mr. Trudeau? Vote for me, or possibly my opponent, whom I agree with in some ridings, but not in others.

The idea of a “progressive left” that must unite along the lines of the modern Conservative party ignores both history and tactics. The Liberals and the NDP are separate parties with their own agendas — they’re not a couple in a position to get back together after a break-up, as the PCs and Reform/Canadian Alliance were following their split.

Every time Harper’s staunchest opponents mention coalition or cooperation, they’re doing his PR work for him — by making his opponents look weak, by reinforcing the false notion that no single party has what it takes to beat him.

Plenty of people have swallowed the Conservative line about Canada drifting rightward and the Conservatives being Canada’s new natural governing party — what Harper’s allies would call “ideological force-feeding”.

But that’s confusing the short-term movements of Canadian politics for the long-term trends — mixing up the forest with the trees. Governments in Canada get tossed out regularly every ten years or so. If voters switch between the Liberals, the Conservatives and the NDP in subsequent elections, it’s not necessarily an indication their values have changed. It means they’re swing voters, or just want a change.

Every time Harper’s staunchest opponents mention coalition or cooperation, they’re doing his PR work for him — by making his opponents look weak, by reinforcing the false notion that no single party has what it takes to beat him.

Of course Harper is beatable. He was beaten by Paul Martin in 2004, even after “uniting the right”. His 2011 majority was eked out on the basis of less than 40 per cent of the vote and a historically low turnout. Had 6,201 people in 14 ridings voted differently, he’d have landed another minority.

It’s not May 2011 anymore. The NDP and Liberals both have new leaders. The Conservatives have been trailing in the polls for nearly two years straight. Harper’s the one with the baggage now, and there’s an awful lot of it.

Campaigns matter. It’s not unheard of for a third-place party in Canada to leapfrog to first and win a majority government; Mike Harris’s PCs did.

For the NDP and the Liberals, talking about a “coalition” means committing not one but two cardinal sins of political communication: answering a hypothetical question and conceding defeat.

Besides, parties don’t elect themselves — the voters do. Like it or not, if progressive voters really want Harper gone, they’re going to have to take on the responsibility themselves — by voting strategically and uniting behind one party. As for the parties themselves, their job is to retreat to their corners and come out fighting, making the best case they can for the right to form the next government.

Dougald Lamont is a writer, strategic communications consultant and policy analyst in Winnipeg. He has worked on many political campaigns in Manitoba. He provided communications support to the federal Liberal campaign in Manitoba in 2008 and 2011 and the Manitoba Liberal Party in 2003 and 2007. He ran for the leadership of the Manitoba Liberal party in 2013.

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